Three important events in Kristin's development have occurred in the past couple of months.

First, she finally has teeth. All of her little friends started getting their teeth at about 6-7 months old. Kristin waited until she was 9 months old before she got her first tooth. It came in just a couple of days before Christmas.

Second, we see the beginnings of language development, i.e., she is saying her first words. It started a couple of months ago when we bought her a baby puppet. We always called it her baby, and after awhile she was saying "baa-bee" when she saw it. Of course, she was also saying baby when she saw her teddy bear, and when she saw pictures of dogs, etc. We concluded that she was generalizing to anything that had a face.

Then over Christmas, when we were visiting Diane's brother in Austin, Texas, she started other words. Diane's brother has two cats and her sister, who was visiting from Houston, came with her dog. Kristin loved the cats and dog. While the dog was outside, she would stand at the window looking out. After a few days she would say "doggie" as she was looking out.

The cats were a little spooked by all of the people in the house (more on this later) so they stayed away most of the time. But in the evenings, when things would quiet down, one would come to visit. When this would happen, Kristin would stand up, stare at the cat, and start babbling. After a couple of days of us telling her to look at the kitty, go see the kitty, etc., Kristin started to say "giddy" when she saw the cat.

As I said earlier, the cats were kind of spooked with all the people (and the dog) and one (George) ran away and was gone for a few days. We went to the local humane shelter to see if George was there, and when we got out of the car and heard dogs barking, Kristin said "doggie." We figured she had doggie down pretty well, responding to both the sight and sound of the dog.

Kristin also says "daddy" and "da-da," and is working on "ducky" (she has a couple of rubber duckys for her bathtime).

Finally, she is taking her first steps on her own. She can only go 2-3 steps before she has to grab something or fall down on her little butt, but she is getting there.